Congresswomen Linda Sanchez is the first Congressional Representative to write legislation to help make "Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day" a reality. She is here giving the first keynote address March 30, 2008. For a view of war from Veterans themselves who want NO MORE: GO here
And Also: you tube VIDEO from Recent Event here
The March on the Pentagon and Commemoration this Month:
here and/or GO here (Note these may be very similar but sometimes it's nice to have two options. GREAT somber music and singing here!)
VFP CHAPTER 039 UPDATE ON EFFORT TO OPPOSE THE "VIRTUAL ARMY EXPERIENCE"
During August of last year, Chapter 39 mounted an effort to oppose the Virtual Army Experience after we learned that it was scheduled to appear at the annual Cleveland Air Show. While we were unsuccessful in having the exhibit removed from the show completely, we were able to catalyze sufficient public support to have the minimum age changed from 13 to 17. Last month we began meeting to discuss strategy for getting the exhibit removed from this year's Air Show. We were delighted to learn that on March 12, Representative Dennis Kucinich sent a letter to the House Committee on Armed Services in which he requested that funding for the VAE be terminated. (We had asked for his help last year but never actually heard back from his office - it appears now that he indeed heard our message). One of our members called the Air Show organizers and was told that the VAE was, in fact, NOT on this years roster of attractions, a statement which was subsequently confirmed by our local newspaper, the Plain Dealer. You can download a pdf file with a summary of Plain Dealer articles covering these events.
Please share this email and attachment with the other chapters of Veterans for Peace, along with our request to other chapters to investigate their local air shows, summer festivals, or other events where the VAE might be scheduled, and to continue the effort to have this "attraction" banned. Here's the link to the VAE website: http://vae.americasarmy.com/. At this time there does not appear to be a current VAE schedule, though our local reporter was told by Amy Lindstrom, VAE Public Affairs Manager, it visits 40 events a year and they already have more than 80 requests.
We would be happy to share our strategy and materials with any VFP chapters interested in challenging the VAE and we would like to acknowledge the efforts of the VFP chapter in Milwaukee. It was they who warned us it was coming this way. To learn more, contact Bob Bemer at bobbmr849@yahoo.com.
Since Chapter 39 took action against the Virtual Army Experience, several other VFP chapters have also done so, including in Philadelphia, PA.
For more on this article above and one on the way Laos, 1968, was covered Go here
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How the UK gov is helping UK vets...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/veterans-win-fight-for-smart-id-cards-1657028.html
God (Allah/Spirit/Love) Grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can & the wisdom to know the difference.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the following relates to the above article and holiday as we seek to ask mature questions about how our military functions, for what purpose and where the Collective Ego is involved?
ReplyDeleteAs some of our greatest sages & prophets have indicated, perhaps the greatest service we can offer humanity is our own inner transformation/self-realization, etc. and perhaps that goes as well for our various collective groupings, nations, religions, causes, organizations, etc.?
I offer here one man's thoughts who IF he were to be a particular religion, would probably come closest to Buddhism.
Although I am not thoroughly satisfied by what I understand of Tolle's conception of Allah - and there would appear to be sometimes a leaving out of Holy Spirit...still I have found in some of Tolle's work a glorious, layered, perceptive understanding of the Ego, of Collective Pain/Suffering and of self-realization & healing for common humanity:
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Eckhart Tolle on THE COLLECTIVE EGO
THE COLLECTIVE EGO
How hard it is to live with yourself! One of the ways in which the ego attempts to escape the unsatisfactoriness of personal selfhood is to enlarge and strengthen its sense of self by identifying with a group--a nation, political party, corporation, institution, sect, club, gang, football team.
In some cases the personal ego seems to dissolve completely as someone dedicates his or her life to working selflessly for the greater good of the collective without demanding personal rewards, recognition, or aggrandizement. What a relief to be freed of the dreadful burden of personal self. The members of the collective feel happy and fulfilled, no matter how hard they work, how many sacrifices they make. They appear to have gone beyond ego. The question is: Have they truly become free, or has the ego simply shifted from the personal to the collective?
A collective ego manifests the same characteristics as the personal ego, such as the need for conflict and enemies, the need for more, the need to be right against others who are wrong, and so on.
Sooner or later, the collective will come into conflict with other collectives, because it unconsciously seeks conflict and it needs opposition to define its boundary and thus its identity.
Its members will then experience the suffering that inevitably comes in the wake of any ego-motivated action. At that point, they may wake up and realize that their collective has a strong element of insanity.
It can be painful at first to suddenly wake up and realize that the collective you had identified with and worked for is actually insane. Some people at that point become cynical or bitter and henceforth deny all values, all worth. This means that they quickly adopted another belief system when the previous one was recognized as illusory and therefore collapsed. They didn't face the death of their ego but ran away and reincarnated into a new one.
A collective ego is usually more unconscious than the individuals that make up that ego. For example, crowds (which are temporary collective egoic entities) are capable of committing atrocities that the individual away from the crowd would not be. Nations not infrequently engage in behavior that would be immediately recognizable as psychopathic in an individual.
As the new consciousness emerges, some people will feel called upon to form groups that reflect the enlightened consciousness. These groups will not be collective egos. The individuals who make up these groups will have no need to define their identity through them. They no longer look to any form to define who they are. Even if the members that make up those groups are not totally free of ego yet, there will be enough awareness in them to recognize the ego in themselves or in others as soon as it appears. However, constant alertness is required since the ego will try to take over and reassert itself in any way it can. Dissolving the human ego by bringing it into the light of awareness-this will be one of the main purposes of these groups, whether they be enlightened businesses, charitable organizations, schools, or communities of people living together. Enlightened collectives will fulfill an important function in the arising of the new consciousness. Just as egoic collectives pull you into unconsciousness and suffering, the enlightened collective can be a vortex for consciousness that will accelerate the planetary shift.
---Excerpt from A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle